Great Crested Grebe, Stanley Park

Back on 18 April I was in a wet and windy Stanley Park, Blackpool and walking the lake, spotted the Great Crested Grebe sat on a nest and decided it might be sensible to return sometime. Great Crested Grebe is on the 'must do list' and perhaps next year I will make more effort to catch them in their mating antics – we'll see.

Anyhoo, finding myself in Blackpool and a spare hour I decided a waltz around Stanley Park lake to see the Great Crested Grebes was in order. Needless to say I wandered up to the 'nature reserve' at the 'hospital end' of the lake to no avail – too many visitors. So a wander back and 'shiver me timbers' a juvenile was in amongst the frenzy of birds down by the ice-cream parlour where they ducks and gulls get fed (along with 8 cygnets and the Black Swan). And then there was an adult grebe.

I spent the next hour or so in changing light conditions, watching them dive for fish and the adult quite successful, whereupon it would feed its catch to the youngster. A couple of times the juvenile dropped the fish and the adult had to catch it again before they drifted off to the other side of the lake and out of camera distance. All image are of one juvenile and one adult – the light responsible for any change in appearance.

(double click an image for slideshow and bigger images)

Lesser Snow Geese off Rossall! Honest!

I couldn't beieve my eyes or the photos either.

Here are some iffy images taken from Rossall at low water,13 seen going towards Cleveleys then returning towards Fleetwood a couple of hours later. Only problem was they were between me and the sun.

As you can see they veered off when they clocked me.

I'd be pleased to hear from anyone who may know more.

Still in  a state of shock!

UPDATE: A number of other people reported the same birds flying west from Pilling, including Chis Batty, who knows what he is talking about (unlike me) and Chris reported "12 white morph (10 adults, 2 juvs), 1 adult blue morph - then flew west". The following day the same flock appear to have turned up at Slimbridge (near Bristol), I dunno 200 miles away?

You can see the blue morph bird in the pictures, especially the last one.

Maybe my luck has truned at last. Fingers crossed.

Toes crossed.

Legs crossed...

That Shock

Quite a turn up for me garden, photographed through the double glazing.

Well chuffed and even better came back two days later, no images, I'm trying to encourage a return but fear the local pussys may be an obstacle, fingers crossed. Not seen it since, but doesn't mean it hasn't been back. And the local Long-tailed Tit flock has started making a welcome return.

if you ever see a Jay in this pose, you know it is about to take off

told you

Eye test? And a shock...

I don't know what is going on, is it something I said? but I've seen nowt lately – I think it may be time for another eye test! Mind you the weather, as always hasn't been great, I can only assume I have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Several trips to Newton Marsh have only produced a Snipe of interest, otherwise hopeless; mind you there are so many wagons stopping on the road and by the verge, with multiple drivers in hi-vis outfits, kicking tyres, chewing the fat, having a smoke or whatever, it is not surprising there are no birds to be seen. Called in at Fairhaven and saw nowt, 3 Jackdaws! A few ducks near the RSPB centre. I did see a Black Swan on Stanley Park Lake (from the zoo?) and two Great Crested Grebes (on bank holiday Sunday – it's a long story but normally a complete anathema to me).

Meanwhile I had quite a shock a week or so ago while looking out of the window while on t'com pute er (last photo) ... I'll leave that with you a while to think about (two seconds?)

So here are some pictures from January 2012 which I never got around to posting (a short study on Tree Sparrows – note those back feathers). It was so cold the back feathers were being 'fluffed up' (technical term) and the wing feathers tucked underneath... I was trying to figure out if it was just the one bird or several doing it (images not necessarily of the same bird)... don't think I came to a conclusion...

'fluffed up' 

not great but liked the autumn colours, even though it was January

a winter starling

a recent shock

You can tell its a bank holiday and raining, two posts in one day!

'The return' of the local patch

at least two films... let's not go there.

I didn't think I had done justice to my local patch so spent another lunch hour about two weeks ago now,  mooching about and still didn't do much better – here are some images. Again disappointed in my efforts and had hopes to come up with more species, the Silver Y moth probably the highlight, despite being common my first recorded image, while other hunting dragonflies were just too fast.

Back home on the local patch

You may have seen Martin's blog and as we live on the same patch we met up one lunchtime for a mooch around, some of my results posted here. We were primarily looking for Dragonflies and while a few were about, photographing as always proves a challenge unless you can catch them on a favoured perch. I was hoping for one or two different species and only appear to have come up with Common Darter – not that I'm complaining they were most entertaining. 

The odd other species were available but I didn't do a very good job of photographing them, a few enclosed and coming upon a small pond it took me back fifty years to a very similar location where I caught my first young roach (or are they rudd?) from the edge of a pond, literally with a bamboo cane and length of line, hook and maggot. It is that abiding memory of childhood that has led me to the wild lochs of Scotland that have barely seen a human, fishing for wild brown trout on the fly – my kinda country. (My last visit a couple of years ago turned up Red Throated Diver with young!)

The school of fish attracted me by their red fins and two images to show what a difference the light makes and finally two images that show me in my 'arty mode'.

Scotland